The Waste Solution
Will McConnell of Rainbow Park Dairy in Florence, Colorado, is like most dairymen. He operates an efficient farm, milking 500 head and effectively managing all the support aspects of his dairy. He’s run his operation for nineteen years and, before that, managed the Colorado Prison System dairy. His roots trace back to Colorado State University in Fort Collins where he was, again, involved in dairy management. Running a dairy is what McConnell does and he does it well.
As with others in the business, he has attempted to address the issue of waste throughout his career. It is an inherent component of the industry and dairymen have always sought cost effective, environmentally sound solutions to the issue. In McConnell’s case, his dairy has large, open dry lots. His crew cleans the corrals on a daily basis and, every two weeks, they haul out the dry manure.
When he started with this particular dairy in 1989, a company in Colorado was purchasing his dry manure for use in fertilizer. Like many, though, that entity fell by the wayside and the military stepped in. An Army depot in Pueblo, Colorado, began using the manure in a mixture with the components of warheads to help in the breakdown of the materials. Given the waste’s high nitrogen content, it was the ideal component to help facilitate microbial degradation of the warheads’ components. And then 9/11 happened and the Army was no longer in the warhead destruction business.
The situation gave McConnell the opportunity to step back and evaluate his operation. His dairy is approximately 50 miles from most other industry-related businesses, so transportation costs are a factor. That being said, local demand was growing for “green” products and McConnell saw that as an opportunity. He made the decision to enter into the composting business.
To do so, McConnell purchased a Brown Bear composting aerator. It was one of the company’s smaller machines that can be attached to the front of a Bobcat. “The Brown Bear was amazing; easy to use and got the job done. The issue quickly became that the machine we bought was too small for the amount of manure our dairy produces,” says McConnell.
His solution was to purchase another machine, this time a larger self-contained composting aerator. “The new Brown Bear was fantastic and just what we needed. Unlike the smaller one, which could take two to three days for us to get through all our waste, this new one takes less than a day,” says McConnell. Given that this Brown Bear is over six years old, he has now had to buy another, newer machine.
“Each version we use is an improvement upon the last one,” notes McConnell. “They keep adding new features that make the process more efficient and that saves me time and money.” What makes the Brown Bear aerator so efficient is it accomplishes multiple tasks in the creation of compost. The machine dewaters sludge in beds, builds windrows, blends bulking agents or additives, and pulverizes and aerates or water mixes for aerobic composting. The machine’s rapid handling rate exposes 100 percent of the material to oxygen immediately so that noxious odors can be absorbed.
McConnell also notes that the Brown Bear team is superb in providing customer service and helping him to develop the best possible system for his operation. “We are really in the middle of nowhere in Colorado and we’ve been able, working with the folks at Brown Bear, to develop a process that really works for us.”
His next challenge is finding a home for all this great compost. The locals, looking for that green alternative, purchase the product for their home gardens, by the sheer volume far outweighs their needs. McConnell and his son, Rob, are now looking for a market in which they can sell this new and highly effective product. “It’s great that we’ve found a solution for our dairy waste and now we have to figure out how to turn it into another business venture. There’s no doubt, with dairying, there’s always a challenge and no two days are alike.”
